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DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED IN QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS, 



1 



J 



ON 



THANKSGIVING DAY, NOV. 25, 1852, 



COMMEMORATIVE OF 



DANIEL WEBSTER 



BY 

WILLIAM P. LUNT, 

PASTOR OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN QUINCY. 




BOSTON: 
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. 

1852. 



£7340 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1853, by 
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Com-t of the District of 

Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDG E : 
ALLEN AND FAKNHAM, PRINTERS. 



QuiNCT, Nov. 26, 1852. 
Kev. and dear Sir: — 

The undersigned, inhabitants of tliis town, deeply impressed with the inter- 
esting, touching, and admirable character of your yesterday's discourse on 
the late Daniel Webster, respectfully solicit a copy for publication. 

By complying with this request, you will confer an obligation on the com- 
munity, and especially on 

Your friends and servants. 



JOSIAH BRIGHAJI, 
GIDEON F. THAYER, 
ISRAEL W. MUNROE, 
LEMUEL BRACKETT, 
DANIEL BAXTER, 
ADAM CURTIS, 
SAMUEL CURTIS, 
NATHANIEL WHITE, 
BENJAMIN CURTIS, 
LEWIS BASS, 

To the Kev. Wm. P. Lunt. 



GEORGE NEWCOMB, 
JOSIAH QUINCY, Jk. 
S. G. WILLIAMS, 
NOAH CUMMINGS, 
JOSEPH W. ROBERTSON, 
GEORGE WHITE, 
FRANCIS WILLIAMS, 
WILLIAM B. DUGGAN, 
STEPHEN BATES, 
WHITCOMB PORTER. 



QuiNCT, Dec. 2, 1852. 
To JosiAH Brigham, Esq., and others : — 

Gentlemen, — In conformity with the request communicated, in such kind 
terms, in your favor of November 26th, I submit to the public the discourse 
delivered on Thanksgiving day, November 25th. 

I am, gentlemen, very respectfully, 

Your friend and servant, 

WILLIAM P. LUNT. 



DISCOURSE. 



The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel. Zech. 12 : 1 . 

Behold, the Lord doth take away from Jerusalem and from Jiidah the stay 
and the staff; the mighty man, and the prudent; the honorable man, and the 
counsellor, and the eloquent orator. Isa. 3 : 1, 2, 3. 

Thus saith the Lord God ; in the day when he went down to the grave, I 
caused a mourning. Ezek. 31 : 15. 

Behold, at eventide trouble ; and before the morning he is not. Isa. 17 : 14. 

His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. Ps. 112 : 7. 

When he cried unto Him, He heard. Ps. 22 : 24. 

I will go to them that are at rest. Ezek. 38 : 11. 
My flesh shall rest in hope. Ps. 16 : 9. 
My work is with my God. Isa. 49 : 4. 
Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbelief. Mark 9 : 24. 
The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. Rom. 6 : 23. 
Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Ps. 51 : 9. 
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I Avill fear no 
evil : for thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Ps. 23 : 4. 

And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Acts 7: 60. 
The Lord givetli his beloved sleep. Ps. 127 : 2. 

The dust shall return to the earth as it was : and the spirit shall return unto 
God who gave it. Eccl. 12 : 7. 

How is the strong staff broken ! Jer. 48 : 17. 

Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid ? Shall 
there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it ? Amos 3 : 6. 

1* 



6 



Wailing shall be in all streets ; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas ! 
alas ! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning. Amos 5 : 16. 

There is sorrow on the sea. Jer 49 : 23. 

All that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall come 
down from their ships ; they shall stand upon the land ; and they shall weep 
for thee. Ezek. 27 : 29, 31. 

At that day sliall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to 
the Holy One of Israel. Isa. 17:7. 

Let us now praise famous men ; men renowned for their power, giving 
counsel by their understanding, leaders of the people by their counsels, wise 
and eloquent in their instructions ; All these were honored in then- generations, 
and were the gloiy of their times. There be of them that have left a name 
behind them, that their praises might be reported. Their glory shall not be 
blotted out. The people will tell of their wisdom, and the congregation will 
shew forth their praise. Their bodies are buried in peace ; but their name 
liveth for evermore. Ecclesiasticus 44 : 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15. 

Among the topics suitable to an occasion like this, 
when Ave are met together to " offer unto God 
Thanksgiving/' may very properly be reckoned the 
services of distinguished public benefactors. In all 
ages such individuals have been celebrated. Their 
acts are recorded in history. Their fame becomes 
a part of the glory of their country. Their elo- 
quence, when it ceases to resound from living hps 
ujDon the ears of living auditors, is added to the 
literature of their language. Their pleadings are 
preserved in judicial reports, and form 2Drecedents 
for future decisions. The institutions which they 
frame or administer remain as monuments of their 
wisdom, and influence. The treaties they negotiate 
are reposited in the archives of States. The exposi- 



tions they make of international justice become 
part of the common law of the world, and help to 
narrow the occasions for war. The burning words 
which they speak for liberty embolden the feeble, 
and intimidate the oppressor. And the testimony 
which they bear to Christianity, as the truth of God 
and the only rule of life for man, circulates among 
their contemporaries, and is handed down to after 
times, to promote the cause of religion and morality. 
Assuredly we may say of such individuals in the 
language of the ancient writer : " Their bodies are 
buried in peace; but their name liveth for ever- 



more." 



The Providence of God, through a recent event, 
has called the people of our whole country to the 
performance of a high duty. As a portion of that 
people, standing in the shadow of that event, and 
bowing to that mysterious but benignant Provi- 
dence, we are assembled now and here, to discharge 
our part of that duty. The united sentiment that 
beats in all our hearts proves that we are together 
under no ordinary circumstances. The departure 
out of life of a great man, this it is that has 
impressed us; — of one whose place was on the 
highest watch-tower of our Israel, whence he could 
survey the nations ; — one to whom we have long been 
accustomed to look up with the anxious question, 
" Watchman, what of the night ? " and whose clear- 



8 



toned response, all 's well, has given a feeling of secu- 
rity to our hearts, and whose portentous silence now 
may well carry our thoughts above mortal vigilance, 
even to Him w^ho has declared, " Except the Lord 
keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." 
The magnetic angel that conveys intelligence, upon 
the hghtning's wings, to the four corners of our 
land, has been charged with no message of more 
moving and mournful import than that which was 
borne from the death-bed of Daniel Webster to the 
impressible milhons of this Union, 

Let us yield our minds to the subject wdiich 
claims our undivided attention on this occasion. 
Let us call up the image of him whose mortal great- 
ness has put on an immortality of renown. Let us 
recount the chief incidents of his life. They may be 
familiar to many w^ho are here present. It is well 
that they should be familiar to all. Let us 2)onder 
the meaning of that life. Let us review the services 
which he has rendered to his country. We may 
do it with a just pride. We should do it with grati- 
tude to the Creator who conferred on him such 
transcendent powers. We can do it as Americans, 
without regard to sectional or party preferences. 
To use his own eloquent words on an occasion 
similar to that which has convened us: "It is fit 
that, by pubHc assembly and solemn observance, 
by anthem and by eulogy, we commemorate the 



services of national benefactors, extol their virtues, 
and render thanks to God for eminent blessings 
early given and long continued, through their 
agency, to our beloved country." 

But what are we to commemorate ? Do we come 
together merely or principally to eulogize great- 
ness ? I need not ask the question concerning that 
poor form of greatness associated with place and 
authority, which are often held and exercised by 
individuals more indebted to fortune or to popular 
favor than to any merit of their own. Of course 
this kind of distinction deserves and should receive 
no consideration in a republic where power belongs 
to the people, and changes hands almost as fre- 
quently as the moon changes its disc. 

Even in regard to that nobler species of greatness 
which makes out a clear title to celebrity in virtue 
of large mental endowments, the genius that as- 
tonishes and delights, the eloquence that convinces, 
moves, mflames, and the influence which belongs 
to minds of this class, a question might still be 
raised whether such powers, let them be as extraor- 
dinary as they are admitted to have been in the 
individual whom we seek to honor, would alone 
justify the tribute which it is our purpose on the 
present occasion to render. K we proposed nothing 
more than to celebrate the triumphs of genius, 
the panegyric would more properly be pronounced 



10 



in a place where " the stone " * does not " cry out of 
the wall," reminding us that he who would secure the 
lasting esteem of the world must give pledges, and 
redeem them at any hazard, to maintain the great 
interests of the world; and where the records of 
christian truth do not teach that "whosoever will 
be the chiefest " among his fellow men, " shall be 
servant of all;" that they alone deserve commen- 
dation, in this christian age of the world, who 
confer benefits on theu^ country and their race; 
that he to whom five talents are given is accepted 
only when he uses them profitably, for the honor of 
God and for the advantage of his fellow men, and by 
such employment makes them other five talents. 

We meet, therefore, to honor a benefactor whose 
services to his country and to the world have been 
as valuable as his abilities were preeminent. Else 
there would be no meaning to christian minds in 
the use we are to make of this occasion and in these 
services. 

I do not assert — no one will assert — that a great 
intellect, whether that intellect be appHed to the 
j)romotion of good or of evil, does not naturally 
inspire a sentiment of admiration. We must admire 
genius, eloquence, learning, the power to move, 
persuade, kindle the hearts of a multitude. We 

* The allusion is to the monument, in memory of John Adams, in the 
church in which this discourse was delivered. 



11 



may trace an analogy in the impressions made on 
us by natural scenery. We are impressed by the 
grandeur and beauty of the visible creation, long 
before we inquire to what uses the powers around us 
may be applied. The lightnings of heaven have 
always been looked at by human eyes with wonder, 
even when, as of old, they were conceived of as the 
"arrows" of God, which He "shot out" to "discom- 
fit" his enemies, and before men had learned, as 
now, to send them, " that they may go, and say unto 
us. Here we are." The cataract of Niagara has 
never been made available for any practical pur- 
poses. It turns no gigantic wheels to aid human 
industry. The only evidence it gives of its power, 
besides the spectacle it presents to the eye, is the 
destruction to which it plunges whatever comes 
within its reach. But there it is pouring down, 
now as ever, its immense volume of water, one of 
the most impressive objects on the surface of the 
earth. 

So it is with a mind of great natural capacity. 
It may be, through neglect, so much intellectual 
power lost, or it may be, owing to a wrong direction 
given to it, so much power for mischief It may 
be employed to pull down, to corrupt, to perplex, 
to blast, to destroy. Still a great mind even when 
overlaid by sloth, or when perverted and misapplied 
to pernicious ends, is among the grandest and rarest 



12 



products of God's creative spirit. Whether the 
picture we look at be of Michael or of Satan, the 
idea of an archangel's intellect is before us, and it 
naturally inspires a sentiment of admiration, blended 
with a species of awe. 

But admiration is not the highest tribute that 
a human being can receive from his fellows. Nor 
is it what a right-minded man will most highly 
prize or wish most earnestly to secure. Respect, 
esteem, confidence, — these are the feelings which 
one will seek to inspire who "loves himself last," 
who takes care that " all the ends he aims at 
should be his country's, his God's, and truth's." It 
is not bare power, but power mastered by a steady 
control, directed to good objects, under an abiding 
conviction of responsibleness ; 2^ower wisely ex- 
erted to bind men closely together in social union, 
to enact wholesome laws, to administer justice 
without partiality, to cause social restraints to be 
regarded as blessings, and to keep the peace of 
the world undisturbed; this is that form of great- 
ness which we have been taught by Christianity 
to commend and honor. 

Consider the well-known facts of Mr. Webster's 
pubHc life, the admitted services which he has 
rendered to his country, to Christendom, to the 
world; the contributions he has made to letters, 
to the great branches of industry, to poHtics, to 



13 



jurisprudence, to international law, to liberty, to 
morals, to religion. These services are recorded 
where no expunging process, if there were a dis- 
position to resort to such a j)rocess, could blot 
them out of the memory of men. They are regis- 
tered in his writings, in the reports of courts, in the 
archives of the nation, in the history of the civiUzed 
world during the period in which he lived; and, 
above all, they are embodied in our institutions, 
and A^dll ]3e more widely known as these institutions 
shall extend their influence among the nations and 
races that occupy the earth. 

No ingenious pleadmg is needed here to make 
out a case. No eloquence is called for to burnish a 
few scanty facts, that they may shine with a bor- 
rowed lustre, and hke a thin plate of silver may 
conceal the base metal which they overlay. In 
estimating true greatness there is never any mis- 
take. What is genuine, approves itself at once to 
all judgments. The humblest acknowledge it, ap- 
preciate it, bow to it, bless it. It is only those 
whose title to distinction is uncertain, those who 
are great by sufferance, or great by courtesy, that 
require the skill of an apologist to secure for them 
the favor of the public. It evinces less presump- 
tion, when a humble individual undertakes to speak 
of an illustrious life like that which has recently 

been closed, than if the same individual should 

o 



14 



venture to pronounce upon the merits and assign 
the place of one who never spoke or acted very 
distinctly for himself . No such task is laid upon 
us by the present occasion. No such difficulties 
embarrass us. The merits of the statesman whose 
loss we deplore are not questioned. His place is 
already adjudged by common consent. We have 
nothing to settle. We simply propose, in what is 
now to be said, to revive in our minds the image 
of one whose commanding presence is no longer 
to mingle in earthly scenes, and to prepare for 
our own use a memorial, imperfect as it may be, 
of a career which has shed glory upon the country 
to which we belong and upon the period in which 
we Hve. 

The hmits of the occasion will allow only a brief 
notice of the leading incidents in Mr. Webster's life. 
At the head-waters of the Merrimac, in the State of 
New Hampshire, and in the town of Salisbury, Dan- 
iel Webster was born on the 18th of January, 1782. 
His cradle was rocked while the last guns were 
firing in the war of Independence ; and the tidings 
of his recent death were announced by the loud- 
mouthed heralds of that country, which commenced 
its career at the same time with him, and has ad- 
vanced with equal steps in the same bright path of 
growing renown. 

His father, Ebenezer Webster, a man of strong 



15 



native sense and sterling virtues, had served in the 
old French war, and had risen to the rank of Captain. 
At the conclusion of that war, Captain Webster 
became one of the original settlers of the town of 
Sahsburj, and there built his house and reared his 
flxmilj^ on the edge of the wilderness. Mr. Webster 
alludes, in his own touching and impressive manner, 
to his birth-place, in a speech dehvered m the year 
1840. 

"It did not happen to me to be born in a log 
cabin ; but my elder brothers and sisters were born 
in a log cabin, raised amid the snow-drifts of New 
Hampshire, at a period so early that, when the 
smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled 
over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence 
of a white man's habitation between it and the settle- 
ments on the rivers of Canada. Its remains stiU 
exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my child- 
dren to it to teach them the hardships endured by 
the generations which have gone before them. I 
weep to think that none of those who inhabited it 
are now among the living ; and if ever I am ashamed 
of it, or if I ever fail in affectionate veneration for 
him who reared and defended it against savage vio- 
lence and destruction, cherished all the domestic 
virtues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and 
blood of seven years' revolutionary war, shrunk from 
no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country, 



16 



and to raise his children to a condition better than 
his own, may my name, and the name of my pos- 
terity be blotted forever from the memory of man- 
kind!" 

When the war of the Revolution broke out, Mr. 
Webster's father was among the foremost to espouse 
the cause of his country. In the year 1776 the 
inhabitants of the town of Salisbury were collected, 
and all, with the exception of two, signed a promise 
or pledge that they would, " to the utmost of their 
power, at the risk of their hves and fortunes, with 
arms, oppose the hostile proceedings of the British 
fleets and armies against the United American Col- 
onies." Mr. Webster refers to this incident with 
evident satisfaction, in his able address delivered 
in the early part of the present year before the 
Historical Society of New York. His words are, — 
" In looking to this record, thus connected with the 
men of my own birth-place, I confess I was gratified 
to find who were the signers, and who were the 
dissentients. Among the former was he, from whom 
I am immediately descended, wdth all his brothers, 
and his whole kith and kin. This is sufficient em- 
blazonry for my arms; enough of heraldry for me ! " 

Nor were Mr. Webster's veneration and affection 
less for his other parent. In the mansion at Marsh- 
field, the visitor will not fail to be attracted, among 
portraits and busts of distinguished characters, by a 



17 



small profile, done in the homeliest style, of a New 
England matron of a former age, bearing these words, 
written by a hand that probably never traced any 
letters with more heart-felt pleasure, "My excel- 
lent mother." As he called up in later years, by the 
help of that rude profile, the image of one most dear 
to his heart, it cannot be doubted that the sentiment, 
and it may be, the words of one of England's purest 
poets were suggested by it : — 

My boast Is not that I deduce my birth 
From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth ; 
But higher far my proud pretensions rise, — 
The son of parents passed into the skies. 

We have seen what Mr. Webster's parentage was ; 
and where was the place of his nativity. He came 
of those who held the plough for their daily bread, 
and who knew how to hold the sword in defence of 
the acres which they tilled. He was born to a 
humble lot, and his destiny apparently was to a 
limited sphere. Shall this mind, whose capacities 
are not yet revealed even to their possessor, be left 
to learn what it may accidentally j^i^k up in the 
intervals of labor, or shall it be brought within reach 
of the springs of knowledge, that it may drink, and 
grow, and feel its strength? The parental mind 
would revolve with anxiety this question of an edu- 
cation, the means of which sixty years ago were 

2* 



18 



scanty anywhere in our country, but especially so 
in the most northern of the colonies, hard by the 
line where savage and civilized life met and mingled. 
By the fireside of his humble home the boy's heart 
would be well provided for. No school for patriot- 
ism could be l^etter than for an impressible youth to 
sit long winter evenings by the blazing hearth, and 
Usten with eager ears, to gather stuff for dreams and 
food for waking thought from the tales of the vete- 
rans of two wars. And, assuredly, no school for faith 
and morals could be desired other than he enjoyed 
who was brought up at the feet of believing, rever- 
ent parents, and who learned his lessons of truth 
and virtue out the one Great Book, — the Book of 
the soul, the Bible which he studied and loved to the 
last hour of his life. But the question still remained, 
how should an education be obtained for the mind of 
this youth. There was nothing in his native jAace 
but the common school, to which he must walk two 
miles or more when it was kept, which did not al- 
ways ha23pen, so near to his father's dwelling. Or 
he might obtain a book occasionally from the small 
circulating library in the town. But this portion of 
Mr. Webster's life is so interesting, and the mstruc- 
tion it furnishes for the young is so valuable in the 
way of encouragement, that I gladly resort to his 
own words to describe the privations and difficulties 
which marked his early years. 



19 



As late as the year 1846, in a letter to a friend 
written on the spot where he was born, and con- 
taining reminiscences of his childhood and youth, he 
says : — 

" Of a hot da}^ in July — it must have been one of 
the last years of Washington's administration — I was 
making hay, with my father, just where I now see a 
remaining elm tree, about the middle of the after- 
noon. The Hon. Abiel Foster, M. C, who lived in 
Canterbury, six miles off, called at the house, and 
came into the field to see my father. He talked 
awhile in the field, and went on his way. When he 
was gone, my father called me to him, and we sat 
down beneath the elm, on a haycock. He said, 
" My son, that is a worthy man, — he is a member of 
Congress, — he goes to Philadelphia, and gets six 
doUars a day, while I toil here. It is because he had 
an education, which I never had. If I had had his 
early education, I should have been in Philadelphia 
in his place. I came near it as it was. But I missed 
it, and now I must work here." " My dear father," 
said I, "you shall not work. Brother and I will 
work for you, and wear our hands out, and you shall 
rest," — and I remember to have cried, and I cry 
now, at the recollection. " My child," said he, " it is 
of no importance to me, — I now hve but for my 
children ; I could not give your elder brother the 
advantages of knowledge, but I can do something for 



20 



you. Exert yourself, — improve your opportunities, 
— learn, — learn, — and when I am gone, you will not 
need to go through the hardships which I have un- 
dergone, and which have made me an old man before 
my time. 

" The next May he took me to Exeter, to the 
Phillips Exeter Academy, — placed me under the 
tuition of its excellent preceptor. Dr. Benjamin 
Abbott, still living. 

"My father died in April, 1806. I neither left 
him, nor forsook him. My opening an office at Bos- 
cawen was that I might be near hmi. I closed his 
eyes in this very house. He died at sixty-seven 
years of age, after a life of exertion, toil, and ex- 
posure, — a private soldier, an officer, a legislator, a 
judge, — every thing that a man could be, to whom 
learning never had disclosed her " ample page." 

This simple and touching narrative would only be 
marred by the addition of any jooor words of mine. 
Although it may be familiar to most of those who 
are present ; it will bear to be repeated, especially 
in the ears of the young. 

But the advantages of a college education were, 
in that early period of the country, confined to a still 
smaller number; in fact only a few aspired to the 
privilege, or were able to secure it. The father 
informed his son, then fifteen years of age, of his 
intention to send him to colleo-e. And here again I 



21 



borrow Mr. Webster's own words, as given by the 
Editor of his works, from " an autobiographical mem- 
orandum of his boyhood." "I remember," he says, 
" the very hill which we were ascending through deep 
snow, in a New England sleigh, when my father made 
known his purpose to me. I could not speak. How 
could he, I thought, with so large a family and in such 
narrow circumstances, think of incurring so great an 
expense for me. A warm glow ran all over me, and 
I laid my head on my father's shoulder and wept." 

It may not be out of place to remark in this con- 
nection, that the origin of Mr. Webster, and the 
humble circumstances out of which he raised himself, 
had a marked influence upon his tastes and habits 
through life. He never lost that love of rural occu- 
pations, of the "innocent pursuits of husbandry," 
which he had gained with the sweat of his youthful 
brow. He retained through life that sympathy and 
fellowship, which true greatness always feels, with 
humble poverty, with strong uncultivated sense, with 
intellect in the ore, with sentiments and affections as 
they gush pure from the wells of the heart, with 
manners plain, honest, unsophisticated, with the 
virtues of nature as distinguished from those of cul- 
ture and art. This may have been one of the 
attractions (for the question is often asked what it 
was) that drew him many years since from yonder 
capital, away from the crowded resort of the culti- 



22 



vated, learned, and high-bred, to the retirement of 
the Old Colony, and induced him to fix his residence 
among a jDCople, part of whom remain through the 
year on the land, making up by sunplicity of life 
and frugal habits for the poor returns which the 
ground yields to patient industry, and a part of whom 
plough the deep, and " wet the line " of seamen's labor 
anj^where between the poles. There he could revive 
the scenes of his youth. There he called up the 
images of parents and early friends long dead, in 
the weather-beaten, toil-stained faces of neighbors 
with whom he held daily and cordial intercourse. 
There his "talk" might be as he chose to have it, 
" of bullocks," and of the produce of the garden and 
the field, and of " treasures hid in the sand," and of 
the tribes of every wing or fni that fly in the air or 
ghde through the waters. There he could sleep in 
the night as nature dictates, and obey 

•' The breezy call of incense-breatliing morn." 

There he could look out upon the ocean, the sight 
of which always makes one feel as a neighbor to 
those who dwell in "the uttermost parts of the 
earth." There amidst healthful exercise, on flood 
or field, he constructed those arguments which be- 
long to the jurisprudence of the country, or medi- 
tated that eloquence which ran like lightning along 
the massive chain of reasoning that grappled mind 



23 



to mind as with links of steel, transmitting the elec- 
tric thrill of a common sentiment from heart to 
heart. There, like the eagle perched on a lonely 
crag, his mind might, from time to time, plume its 
ruffled pinions, and prepare for a higher and bolder 
flight. 

Mr. Webster completed his college course in 
August, 1801, having not only applied himself 
diligently to the studies prescribed in the institu- 
tion, but having employed his vacations in keeping 
school that he might thereby obtain pecuniary 
means to enable his brother to enjoy the same 
advantages for an education with himself After 
graduating he entered the office of Mr. Thompson,* 
a neighbor of his father, and commenced the study 
of the law, a science to which he contributed so 
largely in his subsequent career. About this time 
his necessities obliged him to resort again to school- 
keeping, and he took charge of an academy in 
Fryeburg in Maine, upon a salary of one dollar 
per day. 

In July, 1804, he took up his residence in Boston, 



* Hon. Thomas W. Thompson, a highly respectable lawyer, and succes- 
sively a member of both branches of Congress, had early discovered the 
talents of young Webster, who at the age of thirteen years was with Mm 
awhile as an office boy. By his recommendation the father was induced 
to send his son to Exeter Academy, and afterwards to give him a hberal 
education. 



24 



and after pursuing his legal studies for six or eight 
months in the office of the Hon. Christopher Gore, 
afterwards Governor of Massachusetts, was, in the 
spring of 1805, admitted to the practice of the law 
in the Court of Common Pleas for Suffolk County, 
Boston. Immediately upon this he returned to New 
Hampshire, to be near his father, then advanced 
in life, and opened an office at Boscawen. In May, 
1807, he was admitted as an attorney and counsellor 
of the Superior Court in New Hampshire, and in 
September of that year, removed to Portsmouth. 
He remained in Portsmouth nine successive years in 
the practice of his profession, and in that period, 
by his unremitted study and labor, laid the founda- 
tion of his subsequent unrivalled eminence as a 
lawyer. 

Having been chosen a representative in Congress 
from New Hampshire in the election of November, 
1812, Mr. Webster took his seat for the first time 
in the National Legislature, in an extra session 
called in May, 1813. He was immediately placed by 
the speaker, Mr. Clay, on the committee of Foreign 
affah"s, a very prominent and important post in time 
of war, and he at once occuj)ied a position of 
equahty among the able men who were assembled 
in that Congress from all parts of the country. Of 
his first speech in Congress it is sufficient to repeat 
the fact mentioned by his biographer, that " Chief 



25 



Justice Marshall, writing to a friend some time after 
says : ^At the time when this S23eech was dehvered, I 
did not know Mr. Webster, but I was so much 
struck with it, that I did not hesitate then to state, 
that ]VIi\ Webster was a very able man, and would 
become one of the very first statesmen in America, 
and perhaps the very first.' " 

Mr. Webster was reelected to Congress in 1814, 
and served part of the term for which he was 
chosen. But at the close of the first session of that 
Congress, in August, 1816, he removed to Boston, 
where or in its vicinity his home has since been. 
He brought to Massachusetts a reputation for abihty, 
gained in the courts of his native State and in the 
National Legislature, which has been constantly 
increasing in each of the thirty-six years during 
which his fame has been the treasure of this Com- 
monwealth. 

For some years after his removal to Boston 
Mr. Webster was separated from pohtical life, and 
wholly devoted to his profession. It was in this 
period that he won for himself, by a succession of 
most powerful arguments, the character of the first 
constitutional jurist of the country. In 1820 he was 
a member of the State Convention, in which the 
venerable John Adams had a seat for the last time 
in any pubhc body, and took a leading part in the 
discussions in that body relating to the amendment 

3 



26 



of the Constitution of this Commonwealth. It was 
while he belonged to that Convention that he 
delivered his discourse at Plymouth, commemorative 
of the Landing of the Pilgrims on the 2 2d of Decem- 
ber, the thrilling effect of which is still remembered 
distinctly by many who were present, and who saw 
and heard him on that occasion, when he was in the 
maturity of his manhood. 

In 1822, Mr. Webster having previously declined 
repeated soHcitations of the sort, consented to be a 
candidate for Congress and was elected to represent 
the town of Boston. From that date till his recent 
death, with the exception of a short interval, he has 
continued in the service of the nation, either in 
the Legislative or Executive branches of the gen- 
eral government. 

It is understood that Mr. Webster was reluctant 
to relinquish a constantly increasing practice, which 
gave him the prospect of securing an independence, 
for the toil, excitement, and uncertainty of political 
life. But the time had come when he could no longer 
oppose private interests and personal preferences to 
what seemed an imperative caU to the service of the 
pubhc. A mind of such an order was plainly de- 
signed to reach beyond what is local and Hmited. 
With such a power of vision, there should be some- 
thing distant to look at and an extensive circle to 
measure. There would be as much fitness in using a 






27 



telescope of the highest power to observe objects 
within the reach of the unaided eye, as to confine 
such a mind to offices which can be as well dis- 
charged by ordinary agents. He was made for the 
whole country ; and the tune when he devoted him- 
self to the service of the country must be looked 
back to as an epoch in our national history. Those 
who survive of his early supporters, will congratulate 
themselves for any exertions they may have made 
to place in his right position one capable of such dis- 
tinguished usefulness. 

There still lives in the neighboring metropolis a 
venerable citizen, whose name is known and honored 
wherever public spirit is valued, whose ships have 
brought to him wealth which no one envies, because 
so many j)artake of its benefits ; whose " charities," 
to use the words of the dead, "have distilled, like the 
dews of heaven ; who has fed the hungry, and clothed 
the naked ; who has given sight to the blind." And 
probably no record made on his memory gives him, 
in the review of the past, more true satisfaction, than 
the reflection that he was himself so instrumental in 
securing to the country the continued services of her 
greatest statesman, the circle of whose career he has 
lived to see gloriously completed. 

In 1827, Mr. Webster was transferred to the 
Senate of the United States, and in that body he 
has achieved the greatest triumphs of his eloquence. 



28 



His celebrated speech,* in the Great Debate, so called 
bj way of distmction, which marks au epoch not 
only in his own life, but in the Parhamentary history 
of the country, was delivered in the Senate on the 
twenty-sixth of January, 1830. In that speech, be- 
sides a noble vindication of New England which had 
been unjustly assailed by her opponents, he over- 
threw, by a train of unanswerable reasoning, the 
doctrine of nullification, and his arguments on that 
occasion and in similar debates in subsequent years, 
have acquired a permanent value as expositions of 
the true construction of the Constitution, which binds 
us together as one people, and which makes us, for 
certain specified purposes, one nation. 

From this time till 1841, Mr. Webster's senatorial 
career was illustrated by a succession of masterly 

* A few days after tlie sijeecL in reply to Col. Hajme "was delivered, 
Judge Storj-, haidng then just returned from Washington, came into an 
Insurance office in Boston. The President of the office asked him what 
was thought of the speech at the capital. The Judge observed that the 
members of the Court were unable to be present as hsteners. " But," 
said he, " we have all read it. I asked Judge Marshall what he thought 
of it. His reply was, ' Mr. Webster, perhaps, has told me of no doctrine I 
had not before thought of But for the life of me I could not have stated 
it so well. And if there is any man who can answer that speech, I 
should like to see that man.' " 

Judge Story further remarked, " I called upon Mr. Webster, the even- 
ing before he dehvered this speech, and said to him, ' my friend, I have 
come to ^ve you a piece of advice. You have a good deal to do to-mor- 
row ; and my advice is to keep yourself cool.' ' I shall keep myself cool, 
sir,' was the answer, ' I know my subject.' " 



29 



efforts too numerous to be named even on this occa- 
sion. On the accession of President Harrison, he was 
aj^pointed Secretary of State, which office he con- 
tinued to hold under President Tjder, until the Treaty 
of Washington was negotiated, when he retired and 
remained in private life till, in 1845, he again took 
his seat in the Senate. There he remained through 
a part of the ^^ear 1850, delivering his sentiments 
from time to time, calmly, but fearlessly, during that 
period of unexampled and perilous excitement. 
Upon the accession of President Fillmore, after the 
death of President Taylor, Mr. Webster, to the great 
satisfaction of the whole country, was once more 
made Secretary of State, and that office he held until 
his death, which took place, as is too well known, on 
the twenty-fourth day of October, of the present 
year. 

It remains only to submit some thoughts suggested 
by the more obvious and prominent points in the 
illustrious hfe, which has been rapidly traced from 
its commencement to its close. A full and just 
estimate of Mr. Webster's absolute as well as of his 
comparative merit demands a familiar acquaintance 
with many subjects which I have no disposition to 
arrogate. Such an estimate will be made by those 
who are competent for the office. But there are 
certain aspects of his genius which may be appre- 
ciated by persons of an ordinary range of intellect ; 

3* 



30 



and therefore it may not be deemed presmnptuous 
even in the voice that now addresses you to venture 
a few remarks ujDon what he was and wdiat he ac- 
comphshed as an orator, a jurist, a statesman, a 
diplomatist, a christian behever, and a man. 

One of the leading excellences of Mr. Webster's 
mind was his power to render every subject, however 
complex, intelligible to common understandings. He 
approached his subject directly, and his statements 
are so lucid, his diction is so exact, his premises are 
so uniformly drawn from experience and the actual 
relations of life rather than from abstract specula- 
tion and theory, and his reasoning is so convincing, 
that we feel no jealous apprehension that we may be 
yielding our minds to the influence of a powerful 
sophist, or of an ingenious advocate of a school of 
opinions, or of an eloquent champion of a party. 

A distinct talent seems to be requisite to qualify 
a person to be an instructor of his fellow men. The 
number is large of those who understand a subject 
thoroughly, but who are entirely impotent when they 
attempt to communicate their ideas upon that subject 
to other minds. What they lack is first an exact 
knowledge of the condition of the minds they wish 
to influence, and more than all else they lack a 
medium of communication. The algebraic signs by 
which their own mental operations are conducted, 
will not gain them access to other minds. The pro- 



31 



ficient in any science who should discourse to the 
uninstructed in his own technical, professional terms, 
would be as one using an unknown tongue. Great 
power is evinced by him who induces other minds to 
accept his opinions. A still greater power is wielded 
by the man who can so unfold and present a subject 
as to enable others to form just opinions for them- 
selves. 

This talent is especially valuable in a republican 
country like ours, where interest and duty alike urge 
upon every citizen the importance of forming cor- 
rect judgments of many matters upon which the 
people of other countries do not trouble themselves 
to think at all. And I suppose it will be generally 
conceded that no public man among us has done so 
much as Mr. Webster, in the discussions of legislative 
bodies, and in his direct addresses to the people, to 
make clear and intelligible the intricate subjects 
which come up for consideration in the conduct of 
our national affairs. Whether his opinions were 
adopted or not, whether the measures which he pro- 
posed and the policy which he advocated were 
accepted or rejected, he poured a flood of light upon 
the questions which he discussed, and contributed 
largely, through his whole career, to form an enlight- 
ened public opinion. This he could do with the 
more success, because he was never a mere partisan, 
nor was he so regarded by his countrymen. It is 



32 



true that he acted with a party uniformly, steadily ; 
and that he was a leader and ornament of the party 
to which he belonged. And that party will yet 
learn, if the lesson has not already been made suffi- 
ciently familiar, how necessary he was to their pros- 
perity. But there were always, in his view, interests 
higher than those of party. Truth and justice and 
the good of the country* were paramount objects in 
his estimation, never to be sacrificed to the advance- 
ment of a party. To his honor it may with truth be 
said that on more than one occasion he gave a cor- 
dial and effective support to measures originating 
with his jDolitical opponents, withou at the same time 
quitting his owti ground, or seeki ii to promote his 
own interests by the concessions which patriotism 
obliged him to make. Who will be disposed to deny 
that a civilian of this class, of so clear-sighted, com- 
prehensive, and serene an intellect, is a benefactor ? 
As an orator Mr. Webster ranks among the fore- 
most, and has some merits pecuharly his own. Elo- 
quence is a rare gift, and a powerful agent in human 
affairs. But it has so frequently been perverted to 
bad ends that there is ground for questioning whether 
on the whole it has been an instrument of more 
mischief or advantage to the world.* 

* Saepe et multum hoc mecum cogltavi, bonine an mali plus attulerit 
hominibus et civitatibus copla dicendi, ac summum eloquentiae studium ; 
nam, cum et nostrae reipublicae detrimenta considero, et maximaram 



33 



It does not often happen that the outward requi- 
sites for eloquence — figure, voice, fluent utterance, 
action, are united with the higher mental qualifica- 
tions, memory, unagination, sentiment, and the rea- 
soning faculty. Stni more rarely are these physical, 
personal, mental, and sentimental qualities combined 
with habits of research, with accurate knowledge and 
copious resources for enlightening those whom the 
orator addresses. But the rarest form of endoAvment 
is exhibited when to physical, mental, and acquired 
gifts of the first order are added corresponding 
moral qualities, a scrupulous regard to cardinal prin- 
ciples, a desire to convey only right impressions, and 
to promote some useful, patriotic, humane, or reUg- 
ious end. Hence the maxim which has been adopt- 
ed by the judgment of the world, that none but a 

clvitatiim veteres animo calamitates colligo, non niinimam video per diser- 
tissimos homines invectam partem incommodorum. Cum autem res ab 
nostra memoria, j^i'opter vetustatem, remotas, ex literarum monimentis 
repetere instituo ; miiltas urbes constitutas, pliirima bella restineta, fiiinis- 
simas societates, sanctissimas amicitias intelligo, cima animi ratione, turn 
facilius eloquentia, comparatas. Ac me quidem, diu cogitantem, ratio ipsa 
in banc potissimum sententiam ducit, ut existimem, sapicntiam sine elo- 
quentia panmi prodesse ci^-itatibus, eloquentiam vero sine sapientia 
nimium obesse plenimque, prodesse nunquam. Quare, si quis, omissis 
rectissimis atque honestisslmis studiis rationis et officii, consumit omnem 
operam in exercitatione dicendi, is inutilis sibi, perniciosus patriae, civis 
alitur ; qui vero ita sese ai-mat eloquentia, ut non oppugnare commoda 
patriae, sed pro liis propugnare possit, is mibi vir et siiis et publicis rationi- 
bus utilissimus, atque amicissimus civis, fore vidctur. — Cicero, de Inven- 
tione. 



34 



good man can be an orator. The highest species of 
eloquence requires for its chief condition, that the 
aim of the speaker should be to do good, to avert 
some impending calamity from his country, to advo- 
cate some righteous cause, to clear men's minds of 
some jDcrnicious error, to recommend measures hav- 
• ing for their object the public welfare, to move men 
to honorable, just, generous, patriotic action, or to 
elucidate and enforce those momentous truths of 
religion upon which all social morality rests. 

Viewed in this light Mr. Webster's eloquence is 
entitled to the highest commendation. He never 
spoke to mislead his fellow men, or " to make the 
worse appear the better reason." He never misused 
his wonderful powers to mystify a subject. He never 
played the orator to glorify himself He never 
sought to influence men's passions, and to carry by 
sinister means selfish designs. He appeared among 
the thousands who listened to his words, not as a 
tribune whose office it was to defend the liberties 
of a particular class of citizens, but as the counsel- 
lor of the whole people, using his massive intellect 
and his unequalled power of expression to conduct 
the minds of his countrymen to sound practical con- 
clusions. And his manner gave assurance that the 
force of every statement he made had been de- 
liberately and even conscientiously weighed. Such 
an orator is a benefactor. 



35 



In estimating an effort of forensic or parliamentary 
eloquence, we are to consider, as in regard to a cam- 
paign or a battle, not so much the immediate result, 
the present triumph, but the consequences that grow 
out of it, the permanent advantage to which it leads. 
Such speeches as those made by Mr. Webster on 
various occasions in reply to Col. Hayne or to Mr. 
Calhoun, and such argmnents as he addressed from 
time to time to the Supreme Court of the United 
States, are not to be looked at as temporary tri- 
umphs over his opponents, or as successful efforts to 
gain a cause ; much less are they to be regarded as 
brilliant specimens of art. Such eloquent speech 
becomes a fossil, and, hke the Flora of a former 
period, helps to form the sohd substance of that 
which it once adorned. Such eloquence moulds pub- 
lic sentiment ; it settles prmciples ; it not only cites 
good precedents, but makes precedents for the direc- 
tion of after times. When Mirabeau declared that 
words are things, he spoke truly. Literature can do 
no more than to preserve the signs. The things 
themselves are to be sought for in the revolutions 
which words dictate, in the institutions which they 
build up, or in the ruins of those governments which 
they pull down, in the wars which they provoke or 
prevent. The tongue of a great orator is a little 
member, but it blesses or curses a nation, a genera- 
tion, an age. 



36 



As a statesman, Mr. Webster spent thirty years of 
his hfe in studying and administering that govern- 
ment which the fathers of the Eepubhc framed. 
Instead of seeking to construct, by the help of his 
own reason, a constitution which would be ideally 
perfect, he aimed to maintain that which had been 
established, which was the best that could be agreed 
on at the time when it was adopted, and far better 
than we should be likely to gam, if the question were 
now an open one. This constitution had approved 
itself by the benefits it had already diffused ; this it 
was which he had solemnly sworn to support ; and 
to the defence of this his whole hfe was devoted. 
In the view of one so thinking and acting patriotism 
would be raised to a high rank among the virtues. 

It is to be feared that a w^ay of thinking has 
gamed some considerable currency of late years 
among us, which has had the effect to bring patriot- 
ism into disesteem. By many of the transcendental 
philanthropists of our day it is regarded as a ^drtue 
of questionable value. There w^as a time when piety 
and patriotism were identical. In the case of the 
Hebrew this was eminently true. God and the coun- 
try were to his mind the same. He was taught to 
love the one with the same fervor with which he 
worshipped the other. Jerusalem was not only the 
capital of liis native land, but thither the tribes of 
Israel went up to render homage to the Most High. 



37 



But the doctrine of some at the present day is, 
that patriotism is a narrow sentiment unworthy of a 
period of high civLlization, when the inhabitants of 
all lands are brought together in frequent inter- 
course ; and that it is uiconsistent with that order of 
sentiments, that philanthropy, and cathohc charity 
which Christianity inculcates. 

The consequence of this effort to grasp at too 
much is, that those who make the effort fail to 
retain in their minds any affection or sentiment that 
is strong enough to move or influence them, except 
under the temporary stimulus of fanaticism. Human 
nature is so constituted, that the affections of the 
heart must be limited, or they have no power as 
motives to action. He who attempts to love the 
whole human race ahke, without alloT\dng himself to 
cultivate any particular affection for kindred, for 
neighbors, for fellow countrymen, violates the order 
of nature, and the result of his unnatural attempt 
is, that he will love nobody, and care for nobody, 
and that his thoughts and what affections are left to 
him will centre in himself. 

Mr. Webster believed in patriotism as a virtue 
which society cannot outgrow, and which Chris- 
tianity did not aim to supplant ; and he was a true 
patriot himself He loved hberty, but it was no 
ideal, imaginary hberty, which, hke poetical justice, 
exists only in the brain of the dreamer. It was 

2 



38 



liberty made practicable ; brought within the reach 
and offered to the enjoyment of men by institutions, 
the opportunity to establish which seldom occurs in 
the history of the world. Constitutional, American 
hberty — this is the great reality, which, after ages 
of waiting and longing, and at the cost of labors and 
sacrifices too great to be estimated in a period of 
ease and abundance, has been secured ; and the de- 
parted patriot taught us, once and agam, in his own 
impressive manner, that to hold fast to this, although 
it may not realize all that we can conceive or may 
desire, is the leading, the imperative duty of our 
generation, 

Mr. Webster's patriotism was the point where his 
forensic and senatorial efforts met and united in 
a connnon aim. He is one of the very few who 
have united through life and to the close of life, the 
labors of the lawyer and of the statesman, and which 
is more rare, he was equally great in each of these 
departments of service. The secret of this union and 
of his twofold distinction is to be found in his patri- 
otism. Under the influence of this master-sentiment 
of his heart, whether as pohtician or as jurist, he pro- 
posed to himself one and the same end, to strengthen 
the constitution of the country, and to perpetuate the 
Union of the States. Had he been a selfish partisan in 
politics, he would not willingly have exchanged the 
feverish excitement of popular gatherings for the 



o 



9 



calm atmosphere of courts of justice. Had he been 
a mere lawyer, thinking of nothing but legal forms, 
and aiming at nothing more than to conduct skil- 
fully the causes which might be intrusted to him, he 
could not have turned from the routine of ^^rofes- 
sional life to the study of principles, and their appli- 
cation to the ever-varying condition of a vast com- 
munity. Every constitutional argument which he 
addressed to the supreme tribunal of the country, 
not merely contributed to settle the point immedi- 
ately in dispute, but added another stone to the arch 
of the national union, by refuting the miserable 
doctrine of State Rights, and by establishing in the 
minds of men the truth that there is a central 
sovereignty perfect within its limited sphere, to 
which all local and sectional authorities must yield. 

The time must come, as soon as the passions which 
now agitate and blind the public mind shall have 
subsided, when Mr. Webster's political career wUl be 
acknowledged to be, from beginning to end, one 
consistent and glorious whole, the parts of which are 
like plates of iron so closely fitted together, that it 
will require the nicest scrutiny to detect the joints. 
There is a unity in his public life which makes it 
resemble a finished work of art, the complete ex- 
pression of the idea of the contriver. 

The time must come when this will be the univer- 
sal judgment respecting the much-criticized speech 



40 



of the 7tli of March, 1850. There was not a single 
position taken in that speech which might not have 
been anticipated, which did not, in fact, necessarily 
follow from the principles which he had once and 
again enunciated and advocated. The speech re- 
sulted from his whole previous life, with the rigid 
necessity of his own logic. He could not have done 
other than he did on that occasion, without aban- 
doning the ground for which he had always contend- 
ed. He " took no step backwards," to use his own 
terse and significant phrase. What he has done 
and said, — all has been put on record. History 
cannot perpetuate calumny. History must state facts. 
History must and will compare him mth himself; and 
in that comparison, which he ever invited, and for 
which he has furnished the world ample materials, he 
vindicated. 

In reviewing Mr. Webster's illustrious career, jus- 
tice requires more than a passing notice of his last 
great senatorial efibrt. On the 7th of March, 1850, 
he delivered in liis place in the Senate of the United 
States, his celebrated speech on the Union and the 
Constitution. Whatever may be thought by some 
of the course pursued by the great statesman on this 
occasion, certain it is that the speech had an immedi- 
ate and wonderful effect. A most extraordinary 
state of things existed at the seat of government. 
A succession of occurrences of unexampled character 



41 



rapidly following each other, had introduced a fear- 
ful amount of excitement into the public councils. 
The necessary business of legislation had been for 
months suspended. The machinery of government 
was clogged, and its proper movements impeded, 
wellnigh stopped. The condition of the country at 
that time is best described in the words used by the 
orator in the introduction of his speech. " The im- 
prisoned winds are let loose. The East, the North, 
and the stormy South combine to throw the whole 
sea into commotion, to toss its billows to the skies, 
and disclose its profoitndest depths." 

In the angry controversies which have arisen in 
reference to the course which Mr. Webster felt it to 
be his duty to take on that occasion, I do not pro- 
pose to involve myself A few remarks only will be 
offered on this part of my subject. 

And the first remark is, that we are bound to 
believe that Mr. Webster was influenced by the clear- 
est views and the deepest convictions of pubhc duty. 
In this respect the calmness and dignity of his man- 
ner and words gave him a decided advantage, as con- 
trasted both with the passion that was boiling around 
him when he spoke, and also with the intemperate 
and noisy denunciations that have been directed 
against him since. But his motives have been im- 
peached, and it is noticeable that this has been done, 
in some cases without much self-respect, by those 

4* 



42 



who profess and undertake to expound a religion 
which commands its disciples not to judge, lest they 
be judged. This disposition to arraign motives is 
an expedient frequently resorted to by those who 
are driven to make out a case, or to carry a point, 
by attempting to injure the character of an oppo- 
nent. The rule which Mr. Webster proposed to him- 
self in his public life was, to discuss measures and to 
examine opinions which he considered unwise or 
false, with the utmost freedom and boldness, but not 
to impugn the motives of those who differed from 
him. And seldom have thirty years been spent on 
the arena of heated strife, in the course of which so 
few, if any, deviations from this golden maxim of 
life can be pointed out. He is one of the hon- 
orable exceptions, in this respect, among his contem- 
poraries. In looking back over the printed reports 
of the debates, often on the most exciting topics, in 
which he took a prominent part, and gave utterance 
to his opinions in the most unreserved manner, it is 
gratifying to find such an almost entire absence 
of personal denunciation. And it ought to be added, 
that when the new edition of his writings which has 
recently been published was in the course of prepar- 
ation, under the care of a distinguished and accom- 
plished friend, his injunction was, " My friend, I wish 
to perpetuate no feuds. I have lived a life of strenu- 
ous pohtical warfare. I have sometimes, though 



43 



rarely, and that in self-defence, been led to speak of 
others with severity. I beg you, where you can do it 
without wholly changing the character of the speech, 
and thus doing essential injustice to me, to obliterate 
every trace of personality of the kind. I should 
prefer not to leave a word that would give unneces- 
sary pain to any honest man however opposed to 
me." 

One thing is certain, therefore, that if any have 
been disposed to pursue him with virulence, they have 
been provoked thereto by no example set by him ; 
and their bitterness must stand for its justification, if 
it can be justified, on some other ground than the plea 
of retahation. They have the whole field of invec- 
tive and abuse to themselves. 

If we were prepared, as the community is not 
yet prejDared, to look at the subject with minds 
entirely divested of passion, the only question to 
be considered would be, could Mr. Webster, consistr 
ently with his well-known principles, always openly 
maintained and everywhere known and associated 
with his name, have pursued a different course 
from that which he took calmly and deliberately 
on the 7th of March, 1850, without exposing 
himself to a charge of the grossest inconsistency, 
nay, without a mournful dereliction of duty, and 
a sudden disavowal of the leading ideas of his 
political life ? But he might have done nothing, say 



44 



some. Done nothing ! When every motive that 
can operate upon a patriot urged him to propose 
some course that would extricate the country from a 
most dangerous condition? There are junctures 
when to say nothing and to abstain from action is a 
crime. Such a prudent hiding of himself from diffi- 
culty is allowable to the man of humble station. It 
is a privilege enjoyed by men below the highest, that 
they may avoid the responsibility of great pubHc 
emergencies by skulking among the crowd, and 
watching the course which things are left to take. 
But this refuge cannot with impunity be sought by 
those who are marked out by Providence to be 
leaders and guides of their fellow men. What would 
be prudence in the humble would be censurable in 
them. The principles which they have advocated 
and persuaded other minds to adopt oblige them to 
advance to the line which themselves have drawn, 
although that line may bristle with dangers. 

Every prominent public man who has, at one 
period of his career, published certain well-defined 
opinions, and who repeats and reiterates those opin- 
ions on various occasions, has virtually signed a bond 
with the community whose servant he is, and has 
registered that bond in the memory of the world ; 
and he cannot cancel it ; he cannot run counter to it 
or violate it, without being justly held to account. II 
he openly repudiates the bond, he must be set down 



45 



as a political swindler who has obtained credit of the 
people on false pretences. Or if he turns about and 
changes his opinions, and alleges that he has lost his 
means to meet the engagement into which he entered 
with the pubhc in good faith, he is in that case a 
political bankrupt, and must wind up his affairs and 
retire. Mr. Webster stands before us, as we review 
his consistent and glorious career, in neither of these 
characters. He kept the bond which he had signed. 
When, twenty years ago, in the celebrated debate in 
the Senate, he combatted the doctrine of nulhfica- 
tion, and afterwards, with equal power and success, 
exposed the kindred doctrine of secession, his match- 
less reasoning covered and included the whole ground 
taken by him in 1850. And it might have been con- 
fidently predicted, from his construction of the Con- 
stitution exactly how he would act hi the circum- 
stances in w^hich he was placed two years since. The 
one followed from the other as a necessary conse- 
quence. In taking the ground which he did in for- 
mer years against the Carolina Senators that the 
Constitution of the United States is not a compact, 
as they held, between sovereign States, and which 
any State had reserved to itself a right to judge of, 
and to secede from, or to abrogate at its pleasure, 
but a fundamental agreement made by the whole 
people, and ratified by the people as such, by wdiich 
they constituted themselves one vast body politic for 



46 



certain specified purposes, and by which full power 
was granted to the general government to carry into 
effect the provisions and accompHsh the objects set 
forth in the instrument ; — in taking this ground, he 
declared by necessary implication, that Congress was 
bound to see that every provision of the Constitution 
was enforced. And it was a necessary consequence 
of his doctrine that, if ever circumstances should arise 
making it necessary or advisable that a law should 
be passed to enforce the provision for the rendition 
of fugitives from service, he should feel as much 
bound to give his consent to such a law as to an act 
for the regulation of commerce, or for the coining of 
money. This, it would seem, is the simple view of 
the matter which history must take. 

The variety of Mr. Webster's services, and his sur- 
passing ability in all, will not fail to command the at- 
tention of those who would estimate his claims. If 
as an orator, a patriot, a jurist, and a statesman, he 
has gained for himself a name and place among the 
highest in his country's annals, as a negotiator he 
was a benefactor to the world. He who can prevent 
a bloody contest among the nations, not by skilfully 
holding in check the passions of men, until the time 
comes 

to cry havoc, 
And let slip the dogs of war, 

but by a wise and mutually advantageous and per- 



47 



manent adjustment of differences, executes the most 
beneficent office that can be intrusted to human 
agency. And as the responsibihty attached to such 
an ofl&ce must be fearfully great, the satisfaction 
which arises from success in administering the trust 
will not fail to bring a proportionate reward. He 
who enjoyed the privilege of living in the world 
and of passing out of the world, with the conscious- 
ness and the remembrance that Heaven had granted 
him ability and op23ortunity to accomplish such a 
work as the negotiation of the Treaty of Washing- 
ton, which settled the chief questions in dispute 
between two mighty nations of kindred blood, could 
have expected nothing better from earth. Of the 
preeminent talent displayed in that negotiation, I 
do not presume to judge. It is sufficient, in regard 
to that point to remark, that the late President 
Adams declared publicly his " confidence in Mr. 
Webster, while the matters involved in the treaty 
were under consideration, and that his confidence 
reposed not less upon the temper with which he 
was conducting it, than upon his talents." I sim- 
ply speak of the pure, unmixed pleasure that must 
have been derived from reflecting upon so much 
good accomplished by the most glorious act of a 
glorious life. If there be within the reach and 
enjoyment of fallen man any satisfaction greater, 
purer than this, it must be something that "eye 



48 



hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of 
man conceived," in reversion for him among the 
blessed. 

But more than all else the fact deserves to be 
gratefully recognized, that the statesman whose mind 
had pondered so many subjects connected with the 
temporal prosperity of men, gave some of his selects 
est thoughts to moral and religious themes ; and that 
he left on record unequivocal testimonies to the 
truth and value of Christianity. He has thus fur- 
nished a new illustration of the truth that no 
human being, however gifted, is above the need of 
religion. The more highly an individual may be 
exalted, by the endowments of his intellect, above 
the range of common mortals, the more must he 
crave the solace which comes from " things unseen 
and eternal." He whose genius lifts him to the sum- 
mit at the foot of which his fellows look up and 
tremble, must dwell in a cold and dreary region, if 
he have no society above him. When he comes 
down from such mountain solitudes, his face will not 
shine, there will be no light in his eye, no radiant 
smile will sufiuse his features, unless, hke Moses and 
Christ, he has been conversing with God. 

The distinguished man who has recently been 
taken from us felt deeply, and acknowledged, in his 
own impressive manner, this want of the soul. He 
was a dihgent student of the Bible, whose inspired 



49 



pages he consulted with a dehght which no other 
book afforded. He alluded to it frequently in his 
public addresses and in conversation, not with cold 
respect, but in a manner to prove, that its sacred 
teachings had entered into and become part of his 
mind, and that he drew thence his faith and his hope. 
Often with startling emphasis he exhibited the terse 
significance of scriptural phrases, and made the words 
which are dead through familiarity, " ahve and power- 
ful" to affect the heart. The tribute which he paid 
to the memory of an eminent contemporary contains 
language which has been quoted often, and which 
deserves to be repeated. 

" Pohtical eminence and professional fame fade 
away and die with all things earthly. Nothing of 
character is really permanent but virtue and per- 
sonal worth. These remain. Whatever of excel- 
lence is wrought into the soul itself belongs to both 
worlds. Eeal goodness does not attach itself merely 
to this life ; it points to another world. Pohtical or 
professional reputation cannot last forever; but a 
conscience void of offence before God and man is an 
inheritance for eternity. Rehgion, therefore, is a 
necessary and indispensable element in any great 
human character. There is no Hving without it. A 
man with no sense of refigious duty is he whom the 
Scriptures describe, in such terse but terrific lan- 
guage, as living * without God in the world.' Such 

5 



50 



a man is out of his proper being, out of the circle of 
all his duties, out of the circle of all his happiness, 
and away, far, far away from the purposes of his 
creation." These are weighty and solemn words, 
and it is to be hoped they may reach some minds 
that are deaf to the suggestions of the professional 
morahst. 

Among the valuable services rendered by Mr. 
Webster to the cause of rehgion, ought to be men- 
tioned his admirable argument, addressed to the Su- 
preme Court of the United States, in the case arising 
out of the will of Mr. Girard. That part of the argu- 
ment which enforced the necessity of founding edu- 
cation on rehgion made a deep impression at the 
time when it was dehvered. It was pubhshed in a 
pamphlet form for circulation, and ought to be in 
the hands of every American citizen. It has been 
affirmed, I know not with what truth, that the great 
statesman valued that argument more than all else 
he had written or said in the course of his pubHc life. 
However this may be in point of correctness, I weU 
remember having my attention directed to it by the 
late Mr. Adams ; and the manner in which he spoke 
of it, as the best production of Mr. Webster's which 
he had seen, was emphatic. He who could so advo- 
cate the cause of Divine truth must be pronounced, 
by the united sufifrages of Christendom, a benefactor. 

Nor did he, who gave to the world such eloquent 



51 



and con\dncing testimony to the value of the Chris- 
tian rehgiou, fail to experience its sustaining power 
when his life was drawing to its close. He leaned 
upon the staff of God as his feet went down into the 
dark valley. The particulars of the death-scene are 
famihar to all. I need not repeat them. They are 
an " epistle known and read of aU men ;" and our 
aspiration should be that this epistle may be " wrilr 
ten, not with ink, but with the spirit of the Hving 
God in the fleshly tables of the heart " of a nation. 
The dying ^Jatriot retained his mental vision, in all 
its clearness, to the end. He was able to note the 
exact point where time connects with eternity. 
Hardly had the accents of earthly friends become 
inaudible, when his ear must have caught the voices 
of the angels sitting upon the farther bank of the 
river which divides the world that now is, from the 
world of spirits. The door of this life was closing 
behind him, when " on golden hinges turning " the 
portals of immortality opened and admitted him to 
the presence of his God, with the words yet linger- 
ing on his lips, I still live. 

He has left us. While he mingled in these earthly 
scenes he was a king of men, not through any in- 
herited, much less any usurped title, but by virtue of 
his acknowledged superiority He did not misuse that 
superiority. That is his eulogy. He was great, not 
for selfish purposes, but for the benefit of his country. 



62 



His fame cannot die so long as there are Ameri- 
can hearts beating in American bosoms. No one 
who has lived in liis period and Hstened to his elo- 
quence, as he expressed in his own Doric Saxon the 
thoughts of a capacious intellect, or the conceptions 
of a chastened imagination, or the large senti- 
ments of friendship, of patriotism, of religion, — no 
one who enjoyed such a privilege can ever forget 
him. He inhabits "the chambers of" our "imagery" 
with elder and kindred shades. No one that stood, 
at the commencement of the third century from 
the landing of the Pilgrims, in the old church in 
Plymouth, and heard him, in tones that had the ring 
of sonorous metal, and with a face and form inspired 
by the occasion, welcome like a prophet the future 
generations of the free ; no one who was within 
reach of his voice on Bunker's hill, when the corner- 
stone of its monumental shaft was laid, or afterwards 
when it was completed, and when daylight Hngered 
and played upon its summit ; no one who listened to 
him in Faneuil Hall, when he personated the elder 
Adams, with words of his own which spoke the spirit 
of the patriot whom he eulogized, can ever forget him. 

These personal recollections will, indeed, soon be 
lost, as time, in its ceaseless ebb and flow, rolls gene- 
ration after generation, like successive waves upon 
the shore of being. But personal recollections and 
tradition are not the only means to preserve and 



53 



perpetuate his idea. He made himself one A\'ith his 
country. His image is wrought into the majestic 
structure of the Repubhc, and cannot be removed 
without destroying the Repubhc itself. Nay more ; 
individual fame sometimes outlasts mighty empires, 
Tidly survives, though Rome has fallen. 

Every man owes a debt to the place of his nativ- 
ity, to the seat of learning where he was educated, to 

« 

the profession of which he is a member, to his State, 
to his comitry, to Christendom, to his race ; and this 
debt increases in amount, as his jDosition becomes 
more prominent, and the circle of his influence is 
enlarged. 

Mr. Webster paid the debt which he owed to the 
place of his birth, by retaining in his possession and 
cultivating through life the same paternal acres on 
which he had toiled as a boy, and by the contribu- 
tions which his rural tastes, early formed on the 
banks of the Merrimac, enabled him to make to the 
agriculture of the country. 

He paid his debt to the institution within whose 
walls he was trained, by his celebrated argument in 
the Dartmouth College case, which not merely bene- 
fited that College, but settled important principles 
of American Jurisprudence. 

He paid the debt which he owed to his native 
State, as in other ways, so directly by the addition of 
one hundred thousand acres of land secured to New 

6* 



54 



Hampshire by the treaty which he negotiated with 
England. 

He paid the debt which he was always ready to 
acknowledge to his adopted Commonwealth, — I 
need not say how. His fame is a part of our fame. 
We have shared in the glory of all his trimnphs. 
We have been benefited by his public counsels. Our 
industrial interests, commerce, manufactures, agricul- 
ture, all attest the wisdom of the policy which he 
advocated. 

He has paid the debt which he owed to his profes- 
sion. Is there a jurist in the land, in whatever 
school he may have been trained, who will not be 
ready to rise up and declare that he is under obliga- 
tions to the gifted dead ? 

He has paid the debt which he owed to his coun- 
try. Not to speak of his fame which belongs to the 
whole American people, he has contributed millions 
to her material wealth, and saved millions upon mil- 
lions, by the wars which his far reaching wisdom and 
world-wide influence have prevented. There is not a 
vessel of our sea-shading marine, now floating on the 
ocean, be it fisherman anchored on the Banl^s, or 
whaler wallowing among the icebergs, or swift- 
winged clipper flying before the gales, or Indian 
argosy 

" with portly sail 
That does o'er peer the petty traffickers ; " 



55 



or powerful steamer, working its way against wind 
and tide, or mighty admiral commissioned to bear 
to distant shores the thunder-messages of the Re- 
public, — not one upon whose deck there will not be 
sad countenances and heavy hearts, when the tidings 
are received of the death of him who has established, 
in the world's opinion, the doctrine that " in every 
regularly documented American merchant-vessel, 
the crew who navigate it will find their protection 
in the flag which is over them." There is, and will 
be " sorrow on the sea," while the mournful intelli- 
gence shall circulate from one deck to another 
round the globe. 

He has paid his debt to freedom. AVill not 
Greece and Hungary attest the payment ; and will 
not Russian and Austrian autocrats confess that the 
bond has been cancelled ? 

He has paid the debt which he owed to Chris- 
tendom. Nowhere in the range of literature can 
we find clearer attestations than he gave to the 
truth and value of Christianity, and nowhere a bet^ 
ter illustration of its power than in his death. 

Do I say that he had no faults as a man? I 
affirm no such thing. He affirmed no such vain 
thing himself; but with the humility of a Christian 
cast himself upon the mercy of God through his Son. 
I am not his judge. You are not his judges. His 
case has been carried up to the Supreme tribunal of 



50 



the universe. And that Court — we may well be 
thankful for the assurance — is a Court of Equity, 
and we have an Advocate with the Father. 

He sleeps near by the Rock on which the Pilgrim 
exiles of freedom, weary with wandering, stepped 
when they landed on the shores of the New World. 
Fit resting-place for the great American. We may 
imagine the shades of Winslow and White and 
Standish, rising from their graves, mantled in the 
mists of the sea, to receive this kindred spirit to a 
common sepulchre. 

The bow of promise, springing from that tomb, 
and spanning our national sky, bends midway over 
Mount Vernon, until it reaches the extreme South, 
measuring mth stripes of celestial light the bounds 
of our glorious inheritance, token of the covenant 
by which Providence gives assurance that passing 
clouds will leave a serene heaven, and that no po- 
itical deluge shall wash away the strong-built fabric 
of " Liberty and Union." 



ORDER OF SERVICES. 



1. Vokmtary on the Organ. 

2. Anthem. 

3. Prayer. 

4. Du-ge : by Epes Sargent, Esq. 

DIRGE. 

Night of the Tomb ! He has entered thy portal ; 

Silence of Death ! He is Avraiipecl in thy shade ; 
All of the gifted and great, that was mortal, 

In the earth, where the ocean mist weepeth, is laid. 

Lips, whence the voice that held Senates, proceeded, 

Form, lending argument aspect august. 
Brow, like the arch that a Nation's weight needed. 

Eyes, weUs unfathomed of thought, — all are dust. 

Night of the Tomb ! Through thy darkness is shining 
A light, since the Star in the East, never dim ; 

No jo}''s exultation, no sorrow's repining 

Could hide it, in life or life's ending, from him. 

Silence of Death! There were voices from Heaven, 
That pierced to the quick ear of Faith, through thy gloom ; 

The ROD and the staff, that he asked for, were given, 
And he followed the Saviour's own track to the tomb ! 



58 

Beyond it, above, in an atmosphere finer, 

Lo ! infinite ranges of being to fill ! 
In tliat land of the spirit, that region diviner, 

He liveth, he loveth, he worshippeth still. 

5. Discourse. 

6. Selections from Gray's Elegy in a Country Church- Yard. 

SELECTIONS. 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 

Await alike th' inevitable hour ; 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 

Can storied urn, or animated bust, 
Back to its mansion call the fleetincr breath ? 

Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, 
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death ? 

Hark ! how the sacred calm, that breathes around, 

Bids every fierce tmnultuous passion cease ; 
In still, small accents whispering from the ground, 

A grateful earnest of eternal peace. 

7. Benediction. 



W46 



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